Petition Started to Save Quiksilver Festival

From about midnight to 4 a.m. Wednesday morning, Jason Alegria and Frankie Caputo announced via e-mail and Facebook that they were starting a petition to try to save the festival part of the Quiksilver Pro New York surfing event that the surf company and City Manager Charles Theofan agreed to cancel Tuesday in the wake of Hurricane Irene.

“We hope to get hundreds, if not thousands, of signatures from Long Beach residents and business owners only, specifically those who feel they have been affected by the hurricane, but are still in full support of the festival going forward,” Alegria stated in an e-mail to Patch.

The petition the two men penned states: “I hereby support the continuation of the music and festival portion of the 2011 Quiksilver Pro ASP surf contest, whether on time or delayed. I am aware of the efforts required to repair the damage caused to the city by Hurricane Irene. However, as a Long Beach resident who has been affected by the storm, I feel that the festival in its entirety will be beneficial and supportive to the overall well-being of the community.”

Alegria and Caputo had some 2,000 petitions printed and, around 10:30 a.m., started to drop them off at businesses, mainly on Park Avenue, including Bob’s Natural Foods, Carlton & Dayne, Long Beach Surf Shop and Coffee Nut Cafe, where Alegria works. They had their best success gathering signatures at the Farmer’s Market at Kennedy Plaza.

Through Facebook they were able to recruit a handful of volunteers, including Long Beach resident Mike Camhi, who helped them with the signatures and told them to contact News 12 to attend a planned  gathering of local businessman at Grillfire restaurant on West Park Avenue later on Wednesday.

While the men used social media to spread the word about their petition, they believe a petition is the better route to take rather than electronic media to get their voices heard.

“We thought that with all that’s going on Facebook and the comments on Patch, some people had good points. But the thing is the city manager and city council aren’t going to go on to these websites, or not going to go over every individual comment, so with the petition we have something physical that we can present to them that is actually tangible,” Alegria said. “Even though social media works, I don’t feel like we’re going to reach the people we need to that way.”

The three men and their volunteers plan to take their petition to businesses throughout the community late into Wednesday night, and on Thursday around 12 p.m. they will head to City Hall to present it, along with input they collected online, to the city manager, with the hope that he will reverse the decision and restart the festival.

In an open letter to the community written Tuesday, Theofan said that after the storm nearly 4,000 residents were still without power, that power may remain out until Sunday, more than 30 trees were downed throughout the community, the Long Beach branch of the Long Island Rail Road possibly won’t run for three more days, and residents are still suffering from a storm that caused major damage.

Caputo said that while he was at Farmer’s Market, he talked to multiple residents in town who are still without power and nevertheless want the event to proceed in its entirety.

“They said that their houses are affected and they are in support of it happening,” said Caputo, 25, an East Atlantic Beach resident who attended Long Beach schools. “They think it will be good for the town.”

Camhi believes that the city's issue is not with the hurricane, but rather that it did not adequately prepare for the event.

“It’s almost like a cop out,” Camhi said. “We didn’t get a hurricane, we got a tropical storm, the damage was minimal and has no bearing or effect on the concerts or anything that was planned to go on.”